DIETARY ANTHROPOMETRIC NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT

NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT

DEFINITION OF DIETARY: Dietary is a system or regimen of dieting, it can also be defined as the regulating of daily food allowance.

NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT

A nutrition assessment is an in-depth evaluation of both objective and subjective data related to an individual’s food and nutrientintake, lifestyle, and medical history.

Once the data on an individual is collected and organized, the practitioner can assess and evaluate the nutritional status of that person. The assessment leads to a plan of care, or intervention, designed to help the individual either maintain the assessed status or attain a healthier status.

The nutrition assessment involves both subjective and objective measures, like weight.

Nutrition assessments, which involve an evaluation of objective and subjective data, are used to determine an individual’s nutritional status or growth patterns. Dietitians apply the collected data from the nutrition assessment to plan a nutritional intervention, which involves helping an individual maintain or reach a desired health status. Assessing an individual’s nutritional status involves anthropometrics and dietary data others includes biochemical data and clinical data.

For the purpose of this work we shall be discussing dietary and anthropometric nutritional assessment.

DIETARY DATA

The dietary data component of the nutrition assessment involves documenting an individual’s dietary intake. There are several ways to obtain dietary data. The dietitian may simply ask the individual what he or she ate in the entire 24 hours prior to the nutrition assessment. Alternatively, the dietitian may request that the individual keep a food diary – a record of every food or drink consumed  for a specified period of time, usually three days to a week. The dietary data component may also involve a food frequency questionnaire, which is a survey used to obtain information about how often a specific food or a specific food group is consumed. During the dietary component of the nutrition assessment, the dietitian will also obtain information about any known allergies, food intolerances and food avoidances.

 

ANTHROPOMETRICS

Anthropometrics are objective measurements that help determine amount of muscle and percentage of body fat. These measurements can be used to assess weight loss or gain in an individual or to compare two separate individuals. They can also be used to compare growth rates in children. Anthropometrics may include height, weight, body mass index, skin fold measurements and body frame size. During a nutrition assessment, a dietitian takes anthropometric measurements and then compares them to standard values to make an educated assessment about growth or weight.

Conclusively it is seen that in carrying nutritional assessment using dietary and anthropometrics it solely involve documenting an individual’s dietary   intake (a record of food or drink consumed) and the measurement of amount of muscle and percentage of body fat.